The idea behind this bill is to allow museaums, libraries and other “keepers of the heratige” to freely use creative works if they are unable to find the copyright holder to acquire a license.  However, the way the bill is written would make it legal for any individual to use any copyrighted work, even if they cannot find the owner, provided they made a “good faith, reasonably dilegent search” for said owner.  Yes.  You heard me right.

What’s more, the use of this copyrighted work is free so long as the owner doens’t step forward.  And, if the owner sees their work being used without license, they can come forward and sue for the normal license fee (but not any legal fees involved) so long as the infringement was for commercial use.  If not used commercially, there is no compensation for the copyright holder.

In return, the Copyright office must make a searchable database available so that people who wish to use “orphaned works” can attempt to find the copyright holder.

Here are the problems as I see them relating to my photography.

1. At present, the copyright to an image is owned by the person taking the photo the instant the shutter is pressed.  It is recommended that the copyright owner register their works with the copyright office (for a fee) to protect them in the case of a lawsuit, but it is not necessary.  This amendmend would make registration manditory before an image could ever be put online.  Otherwise, there is a risk that the image could be used without my consent and I would have no recourse.
2. I want to be in control of the licensing of my images.  If someone finds an image they like, they can “make a reasonable effort” to find the copyright holder and then use the image.  While it is possible to sue to get the licensing fee, there is no way for me to have them stop using the image or withdraw it from publication.  Therefore, I lose control over who can use my images and how they can be used.
3. What about the case of people wanting to purchase additional prints of their wedding?  They lost the business card and looked in the phone book but come up empty as to who took the photos.  Off they go to the store to scan and reprint and the photographer loses out on the print sales.

And this is just the beginning!  I guess this means I’m going to have to start putting watermarks on all the images I post here on my blog.  Granted, those on Alamy come with copyright watermarks, but I really didn’t want to have to do this for everything.  This way, if my copyright statement is actually embedded in the prints, there is no question who the copyright holder is.

References:

Copyright Office page on the Orphan Works Bill (including the bill itself)

The SAA Orphan Works Blog

Other changes include a decrease of 5% for contributors giving us photographers 60% of direct sales (instead of 65%) and 40% of sales through distributors (down from 45%).  This commission change shouldn’t occur till early 2009 as well from what I can tell.

What this means for me

Frankly, I see this as a good thing.  While the 60% commission is lower than it was, it’s still higher than many other agencies.  (Many seem to split 50/50)  Also, as a US based photographer, it means that my images will be marketed heavily in their home country — hopefully allowing them to sell better.

Alamy has always been a European agency selling mainly to that area of the world.  Prior to this announcement, the percentage of sales to the US was apparently around 30%.  They project that this number will rise with the dedicated US office.

I’ll post a few of my current favorites in my collection in no particular order.

The following photo was taken while in Alaska.  We took a raft trip down the Chilkat Bald Eagle preserve outside of Haines.  I clearly remember trying to catch these speedy birds as they flew past.

This next photo was taken on the same trip.  This gives some perspective to the scenery.  Nothing makes a person feel so small as to spend some time in the Alaskan wilderness.

The views were absolutely breathtaking as we were on the Chilkat river surrounded by the Chilkat Mountains on both sides.

For those questioning, the above photos were all taken with a Nikon D50 with a Nikon 70-300mm VR lens.

The most amazing thing I found on the Photoshelter Collection during my brief time there was the friendly user forums.  With the demise of PSC, the forums were discontinued.  Thankfully, Digital Darrell has taken it upon himself to create the Stock Imaging Forum.  He’s opened it up to the public and would love for any stock photographers or those interested in the industry to jump over there and check it out.  It’s still new, but growing rapidly!

Let me just talk on a few key points.  While I don’t expect that many people to actually care, I have found this blog somewhat therapeutic and therefore, I write the following for my own clarity of thought as much as for anyone else.  Mind you, the interview was with Allen Murabayashi (CEO of Photoshelter) and Andrew Fingerman (Vice President of Marketing).

When asked about their low sales numbers, Murabayashi responded with this:

We had a system that had 25,000 photographers in it. A lot of photographers were submitting stuff like flowers, mountains, sunsets. That’s not to say those were the people you spoke to, but there was a lot of stuff that had lower commercial value. And the people who were shooting stuff that was in high demand, those were the people who were selling images.

Here’s the thing.  They touted that they were different because they had an edited collection.  They claimed they only accepted images with commercial value.  And yet they blame their lack of sales on photos of “lower commercial value”.  Then why did they accept the photos?  Come on.  Step up and take some responsibility for the closure!

Also, one of the biggest critiques of the closure was that they didn’t give the collection enough time.  Eight months is really not that long for a venture such as this.  Frankly, a two to three year test would be more fitting if they really are going to attempt to become a major market player.  When asked about the short time, the following was stated:

We had a few key assumptions that we were predicating the business on. One of them was that we could create a high volume of Internet sales, unattended sales, and keep the cost structure down.

Let me get this straight.  They expected sales to happen simply online with no assistance from them?  This is crazy.  This means that I should expect to sell images if I simply put them on my website and charge people fair market value.  Ya.  That’s how this works!  How did they expect this venture to ever take off if this was one of they “key assumptions”.

And finally, I will close with one of my favorites.

We knew that if we had ten years, and we could build up, then maybe we had a chance of growing organically. But that’s not the V.C. [venture capital] plan. And that’s not the way that the individuals here wanted to spend their time as entrepreneurs.

Okay.  So what they are saying is that they know that they could make the Photoshelter Collection work given 10 years, but they didn’t want to spend the time or source the correct investors.  Basically, they decided to take a model that needs 10 years and give it 8 months.

Needless to say, even though Photoshelter is staying open with their Archive program (a place for photographers to market their own stock photography), I am going to have no part of it.  Life’s too short to support businesses such as this.

With that, I will end my rant for the night!  Onward to upload to Alamy!

I think the best summation of the whole event is on Vincent Laforet’s blog (yes, the same guy who blogged for Newsweek during the Olympics this year).

Frankly, I’m a bit disheartened by this whole turn of events not because of the closure so much, but how it was handled.  These agencies work because thousands of photographers take the time to upload, organize and keyword photos.  This is not a quick process folks.  It takes a great deal of time and research sometimes to get the photos labeled correctly.  Especially locations and nature.  If they have the wrong keywords, they won’t sell.  Not to mention the time it takes to go out and physically visit locations to shoot.  That’s a lot of man hours invested in creating an image library for them to advertise and sell to agencies, magazines, newspapers.  And sure, Photoshelter took it’s cut of the profit (30% — relatively small compared to most agencies), they did minimal work compared to the photographers.

So a year into this venture, they have thousands, possibly millions of photos.  There are thousands of photos waiting for quality control to review them and many more thousands being actively keyworded.  Instead of giving the photographers a heads up, a warning, any indication that they weren’t in it for the long haul, they simply send out an e-mail that they are closing shop.  And it’s not like they are going to keep the existing photos up and continue to market them for a while in an attempt to make some money for the photographers (and themselves I must add).  They’re removing everything on October 10th.  One month.

Not to mention that in order to add insult to injury, this New York based company decided to make this announcement on September 11th.  Now that’s just really poor taste.

So ya.  Thankfully I had just joined and hadn’t spent more than 20 or so hours working on photos for them. The show must go on.  I’ll be submitting to Alamy with a renewed focus and keeping my eye out for other venues!

While I just got accepted into Alamy less than a month ago, I really want to ensure that I’m marketing to the largest group of agencies possible.  However, I really didn’t want to follow the Royalty Free image marketing scheme.  Therefore, I decided that perhaps Photoshelter may be another great opportunity to sell the style of images I enjoy taking.

Photoshelter is a bit different than Alamy.  They operate more like a traditional stock agency where you submit photographs and they determine if they need them for their collection.  While the images must be good quality (sharp, proper colors and proper composition), they aren’t as rigorous with their upload policy as Alamy.  They also allow the photographer to set their own prices.

[Widget Removed with the demise of Photoshelter]

The above widget should update to show my latest images which have been uploaded.  I’m sure that at some point, I’ll incorporate it into the design on this blog, but for now, it gives an idea of exactly what I have available!

I’m starting to come to the understanding that images need more than just proper exposure and good subjects.  Good stock photography must either evoke an emotion, or attempt to sell a product or idea.

I know that this isn’t perhaps a perfect image.  But I feel that this one has potential to do well in the Stock world.  Not only is it properly exposed and in focus, but it has potential to be used for a variety of advetising uses.  Also, I think it’s a bit catchy but then again, I think I’m a bit biased.

While this image may not have as much advertising potential, I find it alluring.  Then again, I took it.  However, I really think it tells a story.  The worn building and the loading dock amist the signs of industry allows the imagination to wander.  The whole “if those walls could talk” mentality.  Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly what it could be used for.

This is another image I really hope does well.  I wish the colors were a bit more punchy, but the lion just looks so peaceful — relaxed yet dangerous.  Hopefully, emotions may allow this image to sell.  We’ll see!

I try really hard not to let my emotions get in the way of my objectiveness, but it is hard at times!  Check out my Alamy Portfolio and let me know what you think!  Constructive criticism welcome!

While Alamy doesn’t have overly difficult requirements to meet as far as image uploading goes, they do ask for a few simple things (once you understand them).  They require at least 48 megabyte uncompressed files saved in a high quality JPEG format.  They also ask that the files have no sharpening applied to them.  In my opinion, the hard part is finding technically perfect images which Alamy won’t reject due to image softness.

As an Adobe Lightroom user who shoots in the Nikon RAW format of either my D50 or my D200, I find this rather easy to accomplish.  Both of these cameras have an approximate 2/3 ratio of short edge to long edge.  For example, my D200 takes photos of 3,872 pixels by 2,592 pixels.  The D50 has a similar ratio.  Knowing this, if I resize the photos for the longest edge to a length of 5,128 pixels, my photos will be approximately 5,128 by 3,418 pixels or 17,527 pixels.  Given that a JPEG format has 8-bits of data per channel per pixel, that brings the file to around 50 MB.

Under the Lightroom export settings, I simply tell it to resize so that the longest side is 5,128 px and to export using the highest quality JPEG compression.  I’ve never had a Quality Control rejection using these settings.

It is important to note a few things.  First of all, the resulting JPEG will be around 6 – 10 MB.  This is because JPEG format uses compression.  That is just fine.  This is where a lot of people get hung up.  Second, if I’ve cropped the photo at all, the size may not be correct.  In these instances, it’s important to verify the actual uncompressed size of the final image.

After hearing a lot of people have problems with this process, it occurred to me that I hold very high standards when it comes to my Alamy workflow.  I won’t use any original files which need drastic cropping.  Even taking just a little off the side of an image will result in a drastic loss of pixels.  Also, I ensure that the photos are perfectly in focus and sharp.  So far, I’ve not had any problems so I guess it’s working!

I haven’t forgotten my SmugMug vs. Zenfolio debate either.  I’m currently in the process of evaluating them and will definitely be posting more information in the next day or so as to how it’s shaping up!

I suppose I should back up a little.  I’ve been getting more and more into shooting “stock” photography.  What this means is that I submit photos I’ve taken that may be of commercial interest to stock agencies.  They market the images and sell them and the photographer is paid a commission.  There are two major approaches to stock photography — microstock and macrostock.  Essentially, microstock groups images quite cheap, generally on a subscription basis.  Graphic designers, PR firms and other parties purchase the rights to these images and use them in however they want (or as stipulated by the license agreement).  Money can be made by selling large quantities of images.

Macrostock, on the other hand, deals with generally very high quality images which can have tighter restrictions.  Images rights are purchased for a specific project.  Information such as size of image and production run are all factored in and the buyer is allowed to use the image for the specified time frame.  Alamy is one of the major players in the macrostock marketplace.

For more information, Wikipedia has a good description of stock photography.  Alamy themselves have a good description of exactly who they are.

In order to get accepted by Alamy as a contributor, one must submit four photos for quality inspection.  If any of the four aren’t perfect, they reject the whole batch and you have to start over again.  Judging by some of the forums I’ve read, this can be a somewhat troublesome task.  Thankfully, I didn’t have any trouble so I either got lucky, or my photos are better than I thought.  Now that I’ve been accepted, I can submit larger batches of photos (which still have to pass random spot checks for quality) and I can begin hopefully, selling images.  Time will tell how well this plays out!

As I write this, my images are in the queue to become publicly viewable within 24 hours.  With that said, the logo below is a link to my Alamy home page and should begin to have pictures listed very soon!

Since this is a numbers game (the more photos I have for sale the more I’ll sell), I will continue to upload so this page should have more and more photos as the weeks go by!

I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted if I make a sale!

While I plan on selling most of my photos via stock photography site such as Alamy, there are times where I’m sure I’ll need to be able to host photos for sale which perhaps aren’t stock related.  Not that I have such an occasion at present, but if I were asked to shoot an event I would like to be able to put up proofs, allow people to order and accept credit cards.

There are a few serious considerations here.  First off, I have no interest in storing any contact or credit card information myself.  In today’s digital era where identity fraud / theft is a threat, I really don’t want to be responsible for the safety of other’s personal information.  For this reason alone, I want to find a solution where I can allow a professional third party to accept the credit cards and shipping information.

Second, I want a solution which included the option of automatic print fulfillment.  This way, I’m not required to manually order prints for clients and ship them.  In this way, sales can occur with minimal intervention on my part, and clients will get maximum quality at fair prices.

Third, I want a well integrated solution with my current web site.  I don’t want the site to look obviously different and I want to be able to customize it to suit my needs.

Fourth, and possibly more important once I start becoming serious about this, is that I want to be able to set different pricing options for different galleries and have the ability to password protect these galleries.  Why?  Well, I think that a photo from a wedding which requires time and effort to retouch and careful preparation should cost the customer more than a casual snapshot I might put up for friends and family where I really am not interested in making a profit – only allowing them to order prints if they so choose.  With regards to password protection, I feel that privacy on the internet is key.  If people don’t want their wedding photos available for all to see, I feel that I should be able to give them the option to have them password protected.  Same with friends and family.

There are numerous solutions available to photographers.  Zenfolio and SmugMug both come to mind as two of the major players in this market.  They both offer print fulfillment and they both have numerous themes to choose from.  I’ve done a fair bit of research into the pros and cons of each, but I really feel that I’m going to have to take them both for a trial spin (I know Zenfolio offers this options and I would assume SmugMug does as well) and see for myself.

Right off the bat, looking at the different sites created with both options leads me to believe that Zenfolio has faster galleries which seem to have a better interface.  However, they only offer themes and no full customization of the look and feel.  SmugMug sites on the other hand seem a bit slower to load.  However, they are really customizable and seem to offer a truly integrated solution.  I’m going to attempt to keep my initial impressions unbiased as I go forward with this so I’ll be sure to continue to blog about any and all findings!  Yes, I’m that much of a dork.